


Milemarker Twenty Seven Says We're On The Way To Heaven

by lookingoodsugar



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: M/M, Road Trip, but they're on the run?, idk - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2021-02-13 13:30:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21495085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookingoodsugar/pseuds/lookingoodsugar
Summary: Richie Tozier is a deadbeat comedian sick of small gigs and drunk audiences. Tired of rotting away in his hometown, he hits the road. He also hits Eddie Kaspbrak, which is an accident. Eddie takes advantage of the car.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12





	Milemarker Twenty Seven Says We're On The Way To Heaven

**Author's Note:**

> milemarker twenty seven and all the chapter titles are lyrics from banks by lincoln

Richie Tozier’s center stage had always been Maine. He was born in Maine. He spent his childhood in Maine. Broke his first bone in Maine. Gotten his first girlfriend in Maine. His first bad grade. His first boyfriend. His first gig. Everything he had done, it had been in Maine. Hell, he would probably die there too. 

When Richie was eighteen, he realized what he wanted to do. He wanted to be a comedian. Make people laugh. He loved that. That tiny space between the joke and the laughter. How the world would just hang for a second and suddenly, boom, laughter. 

Richie lived in that space. Sometimes, the laughter wouldn’t come. That space was worse than Maine. It was a constant state of misery and anxiety and expectation. That’s not Maine, Maine is a melting pot of homophobia, bigotry, and nothingness. No, Richie lives in a constant state of Ohio. 

He doesn’t really realize he has to leave until that day. He is standing under the hot artificial light of a redneck pub, trying to make pick-up drivers and bored couples laugh. Everyone is too drunk to hear what he has to say. He leaves mid-act. No one cares. 

Alone in his car, on the dimly lit parking lot, he rests his head on the steering wheel.  Another Bullshit Night in Suck City.  _ Face it Tozier _ , he thinks,  _ you need to get out of here before you rot away and die _ . No one wants to be a thirty-years-old single deadbeat comedian living at his parents’. 

“Hey, loser,” a feminine voice calls. His head shots up, his heartbeat pulsing in his ears for some reason. 

Two women are standing by the side of the street, right outside of the streetlight’s glow. The one who called has curly blond hair and the other one, short red hair. They both look underdressed but sport massive dirty-looking fur coats. Richie squints.

“Got a light?”

He fumbles for his lighter as the ginger one strides toward him on gigantic heels. Her legs seem to be infinite. She rests her arm on the driver’s door, a cigarette hanging loosely on her red lips.

“You look sad,” she notices. “No, not sad. Worn out? You look like you’ve been laundered too many times, baby.”

It feels weird to be called baby by an adult woman. He doesn’t reply but still lights her cigarette.

“Thanks.” She blows the smoke in his face.

He pulls out a cigarette for himself and lights it as well. A car pulls up in front of the other girl and she gestures widely to the other one still by Richie’s car.

“Beaverly, ride’s here!” She shouts. 

The red haired sighs and unpulls herself from Richie’s car door. She salutes him with two fingers and starts walking away.

“Hold on,” Richie calls, “take this.”

He hands her his wallet because why fucking not. She frowns but takes it. This is weird.

“Stay safe,” he tells her before starting his car. This is all too weird.

As he drives away, he sees her light the other woman’s cigarette with her own in the rear-view mirror before climbing in the backseat of the car. It feels like watching a kiss he wasn’t supposed to see. He looks away. 

He doesn’t expect to see her again. Yet here she is the next morning. Standing in his bedroom in his parents’ house. Sunlight pierces through the blinds as Richie blinks furiously.

“What the fuck?”

“Hey Richard,” she says. 

A few minutes earlier, she had pulled up to his front door and asked to see ‘Dick’. ‘Richard? Whatever you call him.’

‘Richie,’ his mother had said without blinking, ‘we call him Richie.’

“I thought maybe you’d want your ID back?” She tells him, eying with great interest his bedroom.

She holds up his wallet, not looking away from the great many posters he’s accumulated over the years. 

“You don’t look like a Richie. You look like a Dick.”

Richie blinks some more, trying to figure out if she’s insulting him. 

“But Dicks are mostly fathers. You don’t look like a father either. Is your father Dick?”

“My father is Wentworth,” he replies, squinting at her.

Is this a dream. Is there really a hooker standing in his room? He fumbles for his glasses. Yup, there she is. Same fire hair and stupid fur coat. She points at a poster.

“Really? Blink-182? What are you, twelve?”

“Only mentally.”

“I’m Beverly, by the way.”

“Richie,” he says, still bundled up under the covers. 

“I know. You should open a window, smells like someone died in there.”

Richie really doesn’t want to move. Beverly moves to open the blinds above Richie’s bed and he winces at the sunlight. She’s arched over his shapeless form and her oversized shirt rides up her hip, showing her skin and a huge bruise.

“Can I smoke in here?” She asks, pointing at the ashtray on the windowsill.

Richie nods. This is so weird.

“Why are you here?” he asks finally.

“You gave me your wallet. Last night. Like your whole wallet. You could have just given me your money, I don’t care about your ID or whatever. But I might keep your cinema card.”

She tosses his wallet at him. Surely, there’s no more money left in it. 

“Thanks?”

He grabs himself a cigarette and holds it toward Beverly. Like last night, she lights it with her own, without using her hands. Like a kiss. It’s so fucking weird.

Beverly sits crossed legs on his desk chair and spins it while looking around. Richie can’t be but appalled by the state of his room. There are clothes everywhere, stuff he’s hoarded since his teenage years and way too many pop punk posters. A tiny part of Richie’s brain is saying ‘whatthefuckisgoingon’. The bigger part of his brain is saying ‘if you move she’ll see you in your underwear’. Richie sits perfectly still in his bed. 

“So. What do you do?” She asks while tapping the ashes of her cigarette over the ashtray she moved in between them.

This is so fucking weird.

“I’m a stand up comedian.”

For a second, he’s afraid she’ll ask him to tell her a joke. She just considers it before sauntering to the other side of the room to pick up a book. She holds the cover toward him with the biggest smile ever. 

“I love that book! Who’s your favourite character?”

Richie hasn’t read the book in years. 

“I like them all,” he lies.

Beverly goes on about how much she loves the book, her smile showing the little space between her front teeth. She seems to notice because she suddenly puts a hand in front of her mouth.

“I think it’s cute.”

“Greta calls me Beaverly because of it.”

“I think it’s cute,” Richie repeats because he has nothing else to say. His brain is still soggy from waking up.

“Have you lived there all your life?” Beverly asks. Her whole nonchalant façade has came down and she seems really interesting in knowing Richie.

“Uh, yeah. I want to leave though.”

Beverly’s face shifts. ‘Duh’. No one wants to live at their parents’ house forever.

“Why are you still here then?”

“Good question.”

“You should hit the road. Find yourself or some shit.”

“Are you kicking me out of the town?”

Her laugh echoes in the small room. Teenager Richie would lose his mind.

“No but for real, I’ve seen you cry in the parking lot of a bar, do you really think you’re thriving in Redneck, Nowhere?”

“I wasn’t crying,” Richie argues, “also, why are you so concerned about me?”

She pushes her cigarette butt down in the ashtray. “Maybe it’s because you were the first person nice to me in a long time. Don’t waste it, Dick.”

Richie doesn’t reply. He knows she’s right. Why is it still in Maine? Is this what he wanted his life to be like?

“You’re right,” he finally says. “I always wanted to leave anyway.”

That’s going to be a funny one to explain to his parents. I’m going on a road trip across the USA because a hooker told me to. 

“Come with me?” He offers because it feels right. It was her idea, after all.

She sighs. It’s almost a scoff but not a mean one. 

“Wish I could but I can’t just abandon Greta and leave her to handle the rent by herself. I just can’t leave like that. This isn’t  _ Pretty Woman _ , Richie.”

It’s the first time she calls him that. It sinks like a rock in a fucking lake. He’s only known her for ten hours and he already wants to pack her up and take her away like she’s a trophy wife or something. The truth is, she reminds him of someone. He can’t tell who, tho. But it makes him want to look after her.

“You’re a cool girl, Beverly,” he tells her, because it’s true. “Take care of yourself.”

She smiles sadly before pointing at Richie’s record collection with a huge smile.

“Dude? I can’t believe you’re actually cool?”


End file.
